Sunday, 3 June 2012

Phil sits down at his usual seat. the same seat he always sits in when he comes in to Tramps at this time. back when he was working at the Otus factory he was always in bed at this time. He takes a pill bottle out of his pocket and swallows two of the pills. He has to take the pills for his new job on Mars. some of the new colonists had developed face blindness and the pills are meant to prepare his body for the shock of a new planet with a changing atmosphere. Phil sips his tea. He notices for the first time that at a table on the other side of the room are two men with a woman and a little girl. This struck Phil as odd, more often than not he was the only person in here at this time apart from cab drivers who come in at regular intervals, order their drinks and leave with them in polystyrene cups, and the occasional waster with nowhere to go. Just as he was thinking this, in comes a blond man with a very unhealthy looking mutt. Kip walks to the counter “all right Mary, I’ll have a tea with a shot of your cheapest spirit in it” “have you actually got any money” Kip holds out his dirty hand with some small coins in it “That'll buy you a plain tea. And he's not really meant to be in here ” Mary nods to the dog “He's a seeing eye dog” “You're not blind, you should be able to see better than most people with that thing” she points at his mechanical eye” “I never said he was my seeing eye dog”

Kip walks over to Phil's table and sits down. Phil turns to face Kip “Do you want something!” said Phil in an aggressive manner “Well I could do with some rum to go in this tea” Phil stands up and moves closer to Kip “You what?” Phil's back was to the door so he didn't notice the people entering or who was with them, because most of them technically weren't people. “I only had enough for a plain tea, well actually I didn't even have enough for that but Mary's lovely and she got me a tea and I was hoping you would buy a shot of rum to go in it” a long nasal sound comes from Phil's face, then a glob of mucous green sputum shot out of Phil's mouth and landed in Kip's tea. “Excuse me, have you seen this man?” said a voice behind Phil. He turns round to see Danika holding a Photo of Arthur Foss where he couldn't help but look at it. “ No, I have not” this was a lie and everyone else in the room, who Phil had only just noticed, knew it. Mary pushes a button on a key fob and the steel shutters move down over the front of Tramps Tea Room. “What the hell is going on here?” shouted Phil “You're going to help us out” Phil turned to see the speaker “I think you should sit down" said Peg Leg Joe who was holding a taser gun, forcing Phil to obey. Kip picks up Phil's mug and takes a large swig “ That really hits the spot”

Arthur takes a swig from an identical mug as a pigeon lands on the middle of the table “Piss off!” Will waves his hand at the pigeon and it flies off and lands in an apple tree. Trench Foot gets up and looks out through the thick glass wall at all the drifting small rocks “Is this strong enough?” “It hasn't cracked yet” replied Arthur. Will and Trench Foot hadn’t been on Phily rock long, they had to spend weeks in the pigeon infested otus while the rock hoppers discussed the pigeon issue. After the long discussion the rock hoppers chose to give one asteroid over to the pigeons and Phily rock one of 6 orchard asteroids was picked and Trench foot and Will was released from there now very smelly prison. One of the rock slammed in to the wall, scaring the pigeons who take to the air. One of the skinny birds flies in to the opposite wall and falls to the ground. Will drains the cider from his Tramps mug “Should we get started on that floor?” Trench Foot and Arthur finish their drinks. They walk into the pungent Otus, a small hatch was open in the floor but their noses told them that nowhere near all of the pigeons had found their way out. “Who's going down then?” asked Trench Foot “Not me, I have spent too much of my life under a floor” said Arthur “I will” and Will lowers him self down. Laying flat on his back in pigeon shit, Will stretches out his arms to find the first support beam and pulls himself into a position where he can start unbolting the floor

“Why should I help you” asks Phil “Because gynoids have good memory, and unfortunately for you, video play back” Joe signals to two figures and they walk over. One of them has a face Phil recognises, because it was a face that Phil had helped shape. She smiles at him, an unfriendly smile made even more menacing by ripped skin and the rusting dented metal that showed through it around her mouth. Doc put a small monitor down on the table and plugs it into his companion who calls herself Apollonia. A first person view, looking up at Phil, began playing, the view was through Apollonia's eyes and the frame jerked with each blow of Phil’s steel toe cap boots to her face. If this video was shown to his new employers he could wave goodbye to his new high paid job on Mars. “So what is it you want?” Joe explained then that they wanted him to help ten gynoids and three female humans steal a space ship, and of course Phil agreed “ We need to be moving now, you're going to be staying with us from now on” “I need my stuff from home” said Phil “We will send someone tomorrow” replied Joe.

Mike, Tommy, Emma and Robin get up from their table in the corner “Say bye to your uncles, Robin” Robin throws her arms round Mike and hugs him as tight as her little arms could manage and tears start rolling down here face. “We’ll miss you Rob“ said Mike hugging Robin back. Tommy hugged his sister “You take care of yourselves” Robin lets go of Mike and throws her arms round Tommy who still had his arm round her Mum, he lets go of Emma and hugs Robin. The steel shutters start moving up, Emma takes her daughters hand “We need to go now” the gynoids, Phill, Danika, Emma and Robin all leave the Tramps Tea Room. The tea room fell silent. the silence was broken by Kip “So who want to buy me a drink”

The gynioids and the four humans walk into the underground station. The gynoids let themselves over the barriers and Phil looks round “What's happened to the security officers?” “They're far too busy to stand guard here” replied Joe “They're in the office making sure the cameras aren't pointing at us, and counting their money” the humans jump the barriers apart from Robin, who ducks under it. They travel down on the escalators and deep into the maze of service corridors.

floor panels stand stacked by the open air lock which leads to the dirty Otus. Will comes out of the otus pushing a wheel barrow full of a mixture of bird poo and pigeon bones that had been picked clean by the staving and now cannibalistic birds. He pushes the wheel barrow to the outher end of the habitation chamber and tips out the contents on to an ever growing pile. The second air lock opens and Arthur calls out “Lunch is ready” Will and Trench Foot sit down at the table and Arthur brings over a bowl of vegetable curry and three plates. Small rocks start pounding into the glass walls like a shower of hailstones

Robin runs up and down the warehouse in Felixstowe, taking full advantage of the space, they had spent the night in a small squat in Chelsea, then started for the cost after two hours sleep. Robin stops infront of Joe “Can you unscrew your head?” “I can but I’ll need to remove my skin first” “Oh” Robin runs off then loops back “Why don’t you get a new foot? My Uncle got a new arm. You should get a new foot” “ If I attach a new foot the memory chips in the foot will develop its own personality and give me posatronick Schizophrenia” “Oh, what’s posatronick Schizophrenia” Joe’s internal clock told her that the sun was setting outside “I'll explain later, it's time to move” Joe instructed everyone to grab stuff . Felixstowe container port was the largest in the world, so large it had expanded into the sea, stacking airtight containers on the sea bed. Joe finds the container left for them by a dock worker who had been out of a job before the gynoids started thinking for themselves. It was still wet and had barnacles on it from it's months under the waves. Joe opens it and motions everyone in and shuts the door, she works quickly first fishing a lamp out of her bag to light the container, then setting up an oxygen generator, all the equipment in the container was for Mars for use in the construction of Mars railway, the oxygen generator was an emergency unit to keep a 20 man drilling crew alive in the event of a cave-in. Joe goes over the plan three times then Phil and one of the more intact gynoids head off to get their flight.